Short on Science?

We’ve all been short of something in our lives.
Patience. Of-a-load. Money. Time. Words. Breath. Sleep. Food. Are you finding
yourself, or people around you, short on science? For the holidays, I received a 2-volume infectious
disease text, an anthology of science writing, and a literary journal. Other
members of the family received science and history magazines and a subscription
to the Washington Post. How could I possibly need more to read? It’s an insatiable
quest. My perceived science short-comings are alleviated through the science blogosphere, reading books and magazines I find in my explorations at the local library, the active online science writing community, and PubMed. All these people and things, combined, give a short-scienced individual a box to stand on—as a lift.

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Read great Literature with Science

To me, there is nothing better than reading literature that either hasscience or infectious diseases within the work. A new love for me is Arrowsmith
by Sinclair Lewis (1926 Pulitzer Prize winner).

In the 1998 Signet Classic edition of Arrowsmith, E. L. Doctorow writes in the afterword about
the success of this novel.

“It did not hurt that the
groundsong or lore of the novel consisted of accurate science reportage. Arrowsmith brought to the reading public
of the 1920’s the news of science.”

I love the truth seeking Martin Arrowsmith, the
depth of the characters (especially the apparently shallow ones), the love of
science that oozes throughout the novel, and the language. I don’t want the
story to go to its bitter end. Paul De Kruif (of The Microbe Hunters) was
Lewis’s scientific advisor for the novel, and much of the science was inspired
by the work of Felix d’Herelle and his peers (Koch, Pasteur and others).

The love of good science comes through when Martin’s idol, Professor Max Gottleib, says of
careful note-taking during experiments,

“…And the most important part of
experimentation is not doing the
experiment but making notes, ve-ry [sic] accurate quantitative notes—in ink. I
am told that a great many clever people feel they can keep notes in their
heads. I have often observed with pleasure that such persons do not have heads
in which to keep their notes. This iss [sic] very good, because thus the world
never sees their results and science is not encumbered with them…”

I guess the
internet has changed this somewhat, but for the good, in most cases. Science may be more accessible now than it used to be.

Along with descriptions of laboratory work, Lewis describes epidemiology.
When townsfolk falsely accuse some squatters six miles up the river for
spreading typhoid, Martin's map-work led to a different yet correct conclusion.

“Martin
mapped every recent case of typhoid within five miles of Delft. He looked into
milk routes and grocery deliveries. He discovered that most of the cases had
appeared after the visits of an itinerant seamstress, a spinster virtuous and
almost painfully hygienic. She had had typhoid four years before.”

Another piece of literature that has made an impression is The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara
Kingsolver. Somehow she finds a way to weave malaria, a notably strong infectious disease,
into a missionary family’s weakening structure. The overall impact of this novel remains with me years after reading; the
missionary father wanders still—ranting and raving.

Further reading on Felix d’Herelle can be found in
the amusing collection of scientist stories, It Doesn’t Take a Rocket Scientist: Great Amateurs of Science, by
John Malone. This book also contains a chapter on Gregor Johann Mendel: The
Father of Genetics. It highlights the pea experiments rather well—perhaps a
good reference for either you or your high schooler as you embark on genetics in
biology.

Read
Nonfiction

Nonfictional works on my to-read list, continuing my
love of malarial disease, are The Fever:
How Malaria Has Ruled Humankind for 500,000 Years by Sonia Shah and The Miraculous Fever-tree: Malaria and the
Quest for a Cure that Changed the World by Fiammetta Rocco. They draw me to
them partly because of the covers (should I admit this?), but also for the
history of malaria and the exploration for cures. The first book starts out with the
author differentiating herself from her Indian cousins…on the basis
of mosquito bites (she has them, her cousins don’t). The second book combines the roles of Pope Urban VIII, an apothecary, and Jesuit missionaries working with
locals in Peru with the process of finding and bringing quinine to Europe.

Read
About and Look at the Art/Science Connection

Art and science are connected, and two books that
illustrate this well are Endless Forms:
Charles Darwin, Natural Science and the Visual Arts by Diana Donald and
Jane Munro and Ernst Haeckel: Art Forms
in Nature published by Prestel-Verlag. I recommend that you scour them and plop them down on your youngsters’ laps, carefully (they are big). Better yet, look at them
together. They are a feast for beauty-needing science readers of all ages.

No doubt, Darwin inspired multitudes of artists...and Haeckel was a
scientist that displayed his science as art, by artistic principles, not
scientific principles. This was rather radical for a scientist of this era. His work is a phenomenal
example of art nouveau.

With eyes wide open, your readership of science
bloggers, magazines, fiction and nonfiction books and artbooks…and I emphasize
artbooks…science will be even more beautiful than you had imagined. A needed
visual lift if you are short on science.